


destroyer

by chaehyungwonies



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Gen, POV Multiple, and it's honestly not even romance if you dont want it to be, that's why it's tagged as gen, the kiho is VERY subtle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-04-04 21:07:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14028750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaehyungwonies/pseuds/chaehyungwonies
Summary: hyungwon is lost from himself, destroying the fragile connection between space and time. only the rest of x-clan can find him so he reaches out for help.





	destroyer

**Author's Note:**

> can i start off by saying destroyer is going to DESTROY me!!! that song saved my life and all we had was instrumentals, rap line, and kihyun...anyway, this is something i drafted up connecting the clan, the code, and the connect bc i cannot help myself.
> 
> i'm using the x-clan beautiful mv explanation found in x-clan origins version of shine forever as the basis for this short story:
> 
> _Shownu gets the heart to cherish other’s life_
> 
> _Wonho gets the knowledge to pick out only the meaningful things in events_
> 
> _Minhyuk gets patience to not wilt before the repeating time_
> 
> _Kihyun gets the way to control the anger inside him_
> 
> _Hyungwon gets the wisdom to pick out his true self from his identities_
> 
> _Changkyun gets to sort peacefulness and not sway bc of money/jewels_
> 
> in my mind, the code / the connect is a mixture of the trials mx faced to break out of their rooms in beautiful, along with x-clan post beautiful era where the connect in particular will be about x-clan being whole again after the split that occurred during the clan era.
> 
> this is basically just a theory fuck fest bc i really am whipped cream for storylines.

Jooheon stared at the computer screens in front of him as he tried to decipher the meaning behind the code that flashed bright nonsense at his eyes. He and Changkyun had been spending months trying to figure out how to crack the code, the way to pass through the dimensions and find that person, that missing person who consumed their dreams like a nightmare.

 

514 lit up on the screen and something flickered in Jooheon’s peripheral vision, making him turn to see the beginnings of colorful bright tubes and a machine buzzing with blue liquid power. He didn’t know what to make of the sudden appearance at the moment. The sight was gone as quickly as it came and he rubbed at his tired eyes with a sigh. That machine always came to him at the weirdest times and even worse, Changkyun never saw it. Sometimes the machine had a person with it, never the one who stalked the two coders, but this man with welding tools and bright silver hair going blue at the tips. The man never spoke, never made eye contact either, but stared at the machine as if it was his baby. Whenever he left, Jooheon would feel the echoes of something in his brain, as if whatever the metalsmith had been working on happened in this exact warehouse.

 

Given dimension and time travel was something that could happen, Jooheon wouldn’t be surprised if maybe in another world, this warehouse belonged to that project.

 

“Hey,” called Changkyun as he ran up to Jooheon, holding bags of greasy fast food in his callused hands. He was smiling, bright and happy as if they weren’t both always plagued with the need to find this secret auburn-haired man. “I got some food for the late night coding.”

 

Jooheon turned from the computer screens with a smile and took one of the bags. “Thanks, Changkyun,” he started with a sigh, looking back at the screen one last time to see 514 changed to 518. “Still no progress. I can’t find him.”

 

Changkyun shrugged. “It’s okay, we’ve got time on our hands.”

 

“Not too sure about that anymore,” the older man pulled out a burger and took a bite. “That number, 514, it keeps popping up more often.”

 

“Is the blue-haired guy showing up too?” Jooheon nodded. “Hmm. I’ll say, I’ve been seeing this guy, not your buff man—my dude has pink hair. Pink hair and an armful of blue flowers. It’s weird.”

 

Changkyun pointed out to some point in the distance that seemed pretty arbitrary to Jooheon, but made a scowl appear on Changkyun’s face. “He’s always right there, staring with the flowers in hand. I don’t understand why it’s always that one spot. What happened in here? It’s like a haunting.”

 

“Don’t know.” the blonde looked out at where the machine he often saw would rest. “Do you think the auburn man has anything to do with this?”

 

“Yeah, I’d say so. I think anything crazy has to do with that man and whatever signals he’s sending.” he rolled his eyes and suddenly perked. “Oh right, I had a dream last night. I was running around alleyways with this dude, never seen him before in my life. I think it was purely random; there’s literally no connection to anything else I’ve seen. But he was happy, I  _ felt _ happy being with him. It was nice.”

 

“So that explains your cheery demeanor today,” teased Jooheon as he put down his burger. Changkyun gave him an unamused look and rolled his eyes before returning to his food. “Seriously though, about running out of time. Something is happening out there, I can’t describe it, but we need to find him.”

 

“We will,” the raven-haired man replied quietly. “We have to.”

 

* * *

 

Kihyun looked up and groaned with little actual irritation as he watched Hoseok enter the classroom with a bag slung haphazardly over his shoulder. The silver-haired mathematician turned back to his musings as if ignoring the other man, adjusting his glasses and trying not to give Hoseok any attention when the dark-haired man stood beside him. It was usually like this, Kihyun working on how to solve the equations that rattled his brain, the sense of deja vu overcoming him every time the number 11:14 made its way through his life. He and Hoseok only got connected through simultaneous reactions to 514, something about this auburn haired man stuck in a looping train tunnel. They decided to work together to solve the equations of their visions, Kihyun on the technical math and Hoseok on the physics of the process. Hoseok was pretty good at understanding the technicalities of building objects, which surprised Kihyun when they first started working together.

 

“Any closer?” called Hoseok as he pulled up a chair to sit near Kihyun. The other man shook his head silently. “No worries, we’ll figure it out soon. Have you had any other visions? Deja vu moments?”

 

“Yeah, I found myself locked up in a cage, swords all around me, anger in my gut.” he motioned the thought away with a hand as if he could physical push it from his mind. “It wasn’t nice, feeling so trapped in that painful emotion. How about you? Did you see the taekwondo man again?”

 

Hoseok laughed. “No, not today, but remember that gray-haired hacker guy from before? Like when we first started working together. He came back after so long but he never sees me. He was at the bright machine again, working whatever magic he was trying at.”

 

“Hmm,” was all Kihyun said, circling the number 926 as his solution to the current equation. “I really wanna figure out what that machine is. Maybe we can try to find it and it can help us figure out how to reach our mystery guy.”

 

Hoseok nodded and watched Kihyun with softened eyes, smiling to himself when Kihyun noticed and looked up, flushing with embarrassment before turning back to his work. It was often like this as well, Hoseok being so close and tight with Kihyun after only a few weeks of working together to figure out this mystery. Kihyun couldn’t say he didn’t like it, didn’t like having the attention or affection on him, but he often wondered once they figured out the truth, if Hoseok would still be his friend. They had no overlapping connections outside the deja vu visions and once those ended, they had no reason to keep contact. It was somewhat of a depressing thought that made anger boil in his gut at how he felt this way, how he selfishly didn’t want this to end just so he could keep Hoseok at his side.

 

Kihyun wormed his way around Hoseok’s chair and made it to the whiteboard at the front of the room, writing out the equations he had sketched out on scratch paper. He could feel Hoseok’s eyes on him, watching every stroke and number he wrote on the board. Hoseok probably knew just as much as Kihyun that once the final stroke was written, this would end. Kihyun pushed up his glasses with a cough and turned back to face Hoseok, eyes glancing over the clock that read 11:14 in the process.

 

A greenhouse room of blue flowers greeted him instead, spanning farther than his eye could see. He blinked once, twice, three times, and stepped forward, lips parting slightly at the sight before him. This was new to him but it felt so familiar, too familiar, like he had lived this moment before. The deja vu was getting stronger, almost as if it was hard to tell apart what was real and what wasn’t. Kihyun reached out to stroke one of the petals, shuddering when a small sting passed through his fingers. The room of swords passed through his vision again, just for a split second, and he wondered if maybe that room could be found by finding this warehouse room of blue flowers.

 

“What are you for,” he whispered as he knelt beside one of the boxes, “Why are you important?”

 

“Kihyun?”

 

The silver haired man blinked and found himself reaching out toward nothing, kneeling at a chair with Hoseok beside him, concern in his eyes. “There’s a warehouse,” he started, leaning back on his feet as he tried to preserve the image in his head. “It has a bunch of blue flowers, we need to find it. Those flowers are  _ important _ .”

 

Hoseok frowned. “A warehouse? Like the one my hacker guy was in?”

 

“I don’t know. Maybe? That would be the first time our visions outside the auburn man are connected.” he took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. “This is so tiring, I want to help him, I want to help that man but there’s something else in me too that I need to solve. It’s burning me from the inside out, I can’t do anything about it.”

 

“Hey, hey,” cooed Hoseok as he put a hand to Kihyun’s shoulder. “We’ll figure this out. We’ll find my coder, we’ll find the blue flowers and solve your anger. We’ll find the auburn guy in the train and finally figure out what all of this means.”

 

Kihyun smiled wryly and slipped on his glasses as he looked up at Hoseok. “Thank you.”

 

“Anything for you.”

 

* * *

 

Hyunwoo sighed heavily as he laid across the floor, feeling an emptiness in his gut at another day of no Wonho coming to spar with him. He shouldn’t be surprised, he knew things wouldn’t last long given the watch wasn’t Wonho’s, but he had hoped maybe this time would be longer. Every time got shorter instead and he hated how he remembered every loop. He hated how he got caught in this and continuously remembered every time Wonho found him and returned to him. At some point, Wonho wasn’t going to come back, the loop  _ will _ end, and Hyunwoo would be at peace again.

 

The athlete looked up at the ceiling and frowned at the painting above. It was an old fashioned train, black like the coal it used to carry across the country. He didn’t know who painted it, there wasn’t a signature and it didn’t look quite finished anyway. Wonho apparently never seemed to see it or if he did, he never mentioned a word about how odd it was that a train painting was on the ceiling of a taekwondo gym. The painting left something warm in Hyunwoo’s gut, but it wasn’t always a pleasant warmth. There had to be something to this artwork, something he wasn’t able to grasp at the moment.

 

He looked to the side and froze, seeing a man with a sword staring down at him, dark hair swaying in an invisible wind. The name was on his lips before he could stop himself, a quiet  _ Jooheon _ spilling out into the empty room. That seemed to be the correct name, as Jooheon smiled softly and raised his sword as if to knight someone. Hyunwoo watched silently, eyes locked with the other man until just as suddenly as he appeared, he was gone.

 

A frown marred Hyunwoo’s lips as he stared at where Jooheon had been, wondering why he knew that name, why the other man knew him. He blinked and froze on the spot when he looked up, noticing the train painting on the ceiling was gone, the walls were startlingly hospital white and he was laying in a pile of greenery with blue flowers surrounding him.

 

“What the hell,” he murmured, slowly climbing to his feet as he approached the glass window on the other side of the room. He peaked out, found nothing but an endless white hallway in either direction. For some reason, Hyunwoo felt more like he woke from a dream rather than falling into a vision or dream like before. His hands shook as he stepped back and observed the room, trying to grasp any string of thought that might make this entire situation make sense.

 

Someone knocked on the window and Hyunwoo turned, finding Jooheon at the window, smiling at him with a slight smirk to his lips. “You finally woke up,” he stated happily, “but your trials aren’t over yet. We need you in X-Clan, Shownu. I know you can figure this out.”

 

Shownu? Who the hell is Shownu?

 

* * *

 

Hyungwon stood under the lights of the subway feeling all sense of time and identity get stripped from his being with every passing moment. Nothing felt real anymore, everything was a blur of confusion and not even his watch was allowing him to understand the cosmic energies at work causing this confusion. He stepped through the cart and tried to find himself again, flickering between images of a past or future he didn’t understand anymore. The echoes of reason sounded too far off in the distance as time loop’s footsteps drew closer to him.

 

The window across the way cracked at the touch of his hand, splitting him into fragments through time. There was a hospital bed, he was strapped down in white, a man was feeding him a gummy bear, then suddenly, a black book was slapped across his cheek and bruising took place on his face. He was submerged in water with a splash and Death clung to his skin. Hyungwon could do nothing but feel each whip of change striking his body, knowing that somewhere, somehow, he would find his true self eventually.

 

A man cried out chasing after an upturned car, the person driving inside dying on impact. Hyungwon frowned, he knew the only reason the car crashed was because of the loop’s existence. As long as that brunette ran to the car, the car would crash. Two painters looked up from their drawings simultaneously and tasted Hyungwon’s presence in the air. He smiled softly to himself, but knew time was running out the more he couldn’t identify what was real and what wasn’t. A metalsmith stared at a computer in a warehouse, two coders on either side staring out as if they couldn’t see the metalsmith themselves. They passed by each other through the train, two timelines that would never meet but they  _ needed _ to.

 

The auburn haired man look up into the camera on the roof of the train car, staring deep into the black abyss in hopes of reaching out before he truly was lost for all good. An hourglass shattered, time was thinning and the red-haired beauty in the clocked-themed room turned to look up at Hyungwon as if he could see him.

 

_ Don’t wilt before the repeating time _ , he mouthed as he clenched the pocket-watch in hand, the device cracking it’s glass screen from the pressure as he stood up. Hyungwon watched the man get closer, stopping only a foot away as if bound by an invisible barrier. The red-head flickered between himself and a raven-haired waiter, glitching between two possibilities that Hyungwon was caught between.

 

_ Don’t wilt before the repeating time. _

 

Hyungwon tried to step forward but found himself unable to move. He looked up at the camera again, begging inwardly for any sense to come to him, to understand what he was seeing and how he was causing further changes. He tried to save himself and his friends, he tried to find a solution, but this was obviously not it. The time loop was broken, realities were merging, and it all started with a simple death.

 

The tall well-dressed man looked down at his watch one last time, saw the hands swirling across the face of the watch like a never-ending cycle. He pressed at the buttons on the side, once, twice, three times, then urgently, as if maybe he could possibly stop time itself before it consumed him from the inside out.

 

_ Find the heart, follow the path, and stick together. Then, we will become X-Clan. _

 

* * *

 

11:15 was when it started.

 

The auburn man lit up across the computer screens in the warehouse, befuddling the two hackers. Jooheon frowned as a CCTV video of himself stared him in the face. Changkyun cried out in surprise as well, rushing to Jooheon’s side with worry.

 

“We have to go,” he hissed, pulling at his friend’s shirt before he grabbed his laptop and started making his way outside. Jooheon nodded silently, following after Changkyun as they tried to get to the subway station that the CCTV video originated from. Footsteps echoed behind him and he turned to see himself, from another time, watching from the darkness, smiling as if he knew what was coming next.

 

Kihyun stepped up to the whiteboard, hands sweaty as he tried to figure out the final solution to what he had spent hours working on before. Hoseok was at his side, too close but too far away already with the knowledge that this was the beginning of the end. The silver haired man picked up the dry-erase marker, uncapped it and held the blunt end of the pen to his lips, taking a final deep breath as he looked at all their hard work.

 

Hoseok took up a black pen and scribbled the solution down before Kihyun could tell him to stop. Beg him to stop putting an end to their working relationship. With nothing more to work for, there was no reason to keep running into each other; who even knew what would happen once they figured out where to go and how to travel through the loop. Anger burst through Kihyun’s veins and he stepped back, hurt and confused about all the emotions he felt toward the other man giving him the answer he stalled to come to.

 

His vision went black like a shroud covering his watering eyes. His eyes were still open, he could still see as well, but there was nothing to look at but empty darkness. He felt incredibly lost and consumed by emotions that made him want to scream. Long fingered hands draped over his eyes like a cloth, soft and gentle against the harsh reality of blindness. There was a voice in his ear, it wasn’t Hoseok or anyone else he knew, but it was familiar. It led him toward a peak, rays of light down a deep path in a forest where others were waiting for him. He didn’t have to see the face to that know the voice calling to him and the hands blinding him with cloth belonged to the auburn man.

 

Kihyun turned to leave the room and felt a hand on his wrist holding him back. Looking back, he swallowed a dry lump in his throat at the sorrowful look on Hoseok’s face, of Hoseok telling him not to go, not to leave. But wasn’t this what Hoseok wanted by letting this end? He knew just as well as Kihyun that by cracking the code to the the path they had no reason to communicate again. Whatever loop they may have been in themselves would end and no order that they knew before would be instated.

 

He pulled his wrist from Hoseok’s grip and trekked forward, grabbing his notebook and backpack before leaving without a second glance.

 

Minhyuk stared at the hourglass painting, the blue sand curling through either side of the object. His hand hurt from gripping his paintbrush too tight, but it felt like more than a simple piece of wood. He turned to Shownu with knowing eyes, both realizing that whatever loop they were found in had been broken.  _ Don’t wilt before the repeating time _ , the blonde whispered, grabbing his backpack before following Shownu out of the studio to wherever their thoughts lead them. Faint swishes of reddish-brown hair followed them through the dark tunnels below.

 

Hyungwon stared out through the window of his train cart as he sat, hands shaking as the metaphorical clock kept ticking. He felt empty but overly full at the same time, strong but immensely weak. Nothing was connecting anymore, his memories were losing themselves and all he could see were various iterations of himself through timelines, each one trying to cement itself as the true him. His drowning kept echoing in his head, the feeling of water filling his lungs with blue flowers dancing in his vision permeated through his body. 

 

Time was dying and if the connection couldn’t be found, he would soon be lost with time itself.

 

* * *

 

Shownu and Minhyuk weren’t alone when they reached the train station. Two other pairs of people stood at the terminal and Shownu cocked his head with confusion as they seemed vaguely familiar. The dark-haired boy with the glasses was staring at the black haired man who came with the short gray-haired boy across the way, sparkles of familiarity lighting his eyes. The black-haired man himself was looking at Shownu like he knew him, which was confusing in of itself. The blonde coder was staring at that gray-haired boy too for a few moments but said nothing as he became too focused on scanning the station for whatever they were looking for.

 

Minhyuk stood by Shownu carefully, watching the world around them fall apart second by second as 1:15 approached. They were all here for a reason, something connected to the auburn man by the looks of things. The blonde man turned toward the right terminal and froze, as if seeing something new.

 

“Jooheon,” called the black-haired glasses-wearing man, concern in his voice. “Jooheon, did you see something?”

 

“Changkyun, he’s in there.” replied Jooheon, taking a hesitant step forward. A train flew by, the cracks of reality got deeper, and Shownu could feel himself slipping between now and a form of himself who knew nothing of Shownu. “He’s in there, guys, we have to save him!”

 

No one could stop Jooheon as he ran forward, jumping into the crack in the time-space continuity with little abandon. Changkyun cried out and ran forward, only being stopped by the silver-haired man grabbing him by the hoodie of his jacket. “Stop! We need as many of us here as possible,” he hissed, letting go of Changkyun when the other man growled lowly. The man turned to the raven-haired boy he had come with. “Hoseok, this is the train number from your equation.”

 

Hoseok nodded. “It is. We have to go in, Kihyun. We have to connect.”

 

Kihyun turned to Minhyuk with weary eyes before looking back at Hoseok. “Do you want to do this?”

 

Shownu rose an eyebrow as Hoseok smiled soberly, squeezing Kihyun’s hand. “We have to finish finding the answers more than anything else. We’ll be okay.”

 

The silver-haired man opened his mouth as if about to say more, but merely let go of Hoseok’s hand and stepped back, putting himself in a running sprint. “Let’s do this.”

 

The jump wasn’t too bad though Shownu could feel himself losing connection with his own world through the process. He belatedly wondered how the auburn man felt being locked in the train for who knew how long, feeling himself get lost further in loops he couldn’t control. Shownu saw himself on the floor of a gym laughing beside someone resembling Hoseok, he found himself with a gun in hand robbing a store, he woke up in a room of flora and blue flowers and potions and fell asleep swallowing blue elixir down his throat.

 

Jooheon was already with the auburn man by the time Shownu and the others made their way inside the train cart. The stranger looked up with confused eyes, staring up at everyone who was watching him as if waiting for answers. There was little sense of relief in his eyes, though he seemed to find himself under better control once Jooheon sat down beside him and the others also settle down. Changkyun was smiling happily as if he had found the answers to all his life’s problems. He looked peaceful in a way, content and satisfied as long as this strange auburn man was here with the rest of the group.

 

Shownu looked at Kihyun, who seemed a lot less tense than before the jump. He was staring at his hands as if holding something, but a nudge from Hoseok brought his attention to the present. The train was still moving, carrying the group through the connection they had with the auburn man. For some reason, this felt like after the white room. It felt like all the different universes and existences Shownu had lived through were coming together here and now. Hyunwoo and Shownu were one, Hoseok and Wonho were one, all the other versions of everyone else had combined in this moment on this train in the crack of time and space to converge with this strange man.

 

“My watch,” the aforementioned man murmured, staring at the broken device in his hands. Minhyuk perked at it, noted how it was similar to a watch a different version of himself had cracked during a time-travel escapade. “Yes,” replied the man, “you used it. All of you did. I think I was trying so hard to save all of you that I forgot who I am.”

 

“You’re with us now though,” spoke Kihyun, smiling softly with his words. “I remember, a room of swords. I was angry, angry that you died, angry that Hoseok was leaving me, angry that Jooheon was dead and I couldn’t stop him from the car crash.” Jooheon shuddered at that final sentence. “But being here now, with all of us? I feel content. I feel like I can start over, you know?”

 

“Yeah,” murmured Changkyun softly. “I’ve always been into hacking and coding, trying to figure out the secrets to the technology around us. You can get good money for that you know?” he rubbed at his neck nervously and Jooheon patted his shoulder. “That’s not relevant anymore though, not when this—all seven of us—is complete. I feel peaceful, like all the previous versions of me, trapped in a room of riches and diamonds, forgetting about the friendships I have. So Minhyuk,” he motioned to the blonde, “was my friend in one universe, whether after or before the room I don’t know, but he helped me realize I think.”

 

“Yeah,” Minhyuk chuckled lightly, “I was trapped. It wasn’t fun being stuck in any loop. Death and being revived, just to die and be revived again. Traveling to see an old friend only to get caught and forced back into my timeline. Stuck in that room with hourglasses and dials everywhere, reminding me of how everything passes and I can’t do anything about it.” he seemed down but perked up when he looked over at the watch-welding man. “But we found you after all.”

 

“I’m not quite sure I’ve found myself. What is my purpose here? Why was I dead but now I can control time itself?”

 

“Does it really matter?” spoke up Hoseok. “The only thing that matters is that we made it, we’re finally back together again, we’ve reconnected. You being the time keeper might very well be who you are. The one who keeps us all together in the same timeline.”

 

The man nodded silently, looking up at the others with a frown. “What’s next, then?”

 

Shownu smirked as he crossed his arms. “Only time will tell.”

 


End file.
